The blogs of a guy who quit his job, sold or gave away all of his possessions, joined the Peace Corps and moved to the tiny island Kingdom of Tonga. This is his (and only) his story.

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8.13.2005

On the strike and my constitutional right to free speech...

Sadly, Nicole, as I'm a Peace Corps volunteer, I'm not allowed to express my opinion in any manner, shape, fashion or inkling about anything politcal here in Tonga, especially the Tongan Government Workers Strike. In fact, almost two weeks after the strike started we received some updated guidelines reminding us that we are not allowed to express any local political views at all. Its one of the things that bothers me about the Peace Corps' policy, but, having been here for almost two years and being a volunteer, I understand the precariousness of the Peace Corps' tenure if all of its volunteers rose up and helped organize a workers' strike or helped the government run their programs as scabs. Pretty much everyone here feels one way (I'm sure you can figure it out) but we can't really say anything about it. Its sucks too, because I had a pretty sweet post about the strike that I can't publish because its too opninionated. I'll publish it later.

Tiny Update Out.

Simi

PS - Check out Matangi Tonga for real, honest up-to-date information about Tonga and the Strike